


THE THINGS WE SAY TO OUR CHILDREN

by EvanBlack



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Childhood Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22037146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvanBlack/pseuds/EvanBlack
Summary: The Mulders' neighbor recalls the night Samantha disappeared, and beyond.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	THE THINGS WE SAY TO OUR CHILDREN

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not re-post to any other site without writer's permission.

I remember it was a warm summer night and we had the Mulders and the Johnsons over for drinks. So warm that the windows were open at 10.30pm. We didn't have air con; people left their windows open back then - and their doors unlocked. It was a different world.

Bill and Carl were talking politics with Lyle at one end of the room while Teena, Clarissa and I rolled our eyes and laughed quietly. Nixon and Agnew and Watergate always on the TV - our looks said we were sick of the lot of them. 

Clarissa looked at her watch - a delicate little platinum number with Roman numerals. Must've cost a fortune. Carl was in real estate and it was booming.

'We should get going, Pattie. We told the sitter we'd be back by eleven.'

I glanced at the clock and smiled in understanding. It was a quarter of, but although the Johnsons only lived across the road we both knew that extricating Carl from the man-talk could take some time.

Clarissa stood up and smoothed her fashionably wide polyester pants. 'You're lucky to have Fox, Teena.'

I knew what she meant. It saved hiring a sitter for Samantha. Plus, Fox was a good kid. I guess he was about 12 then - a year younger than Scott and Marty and - love them though I did - back then I wouldn't have left either of them in charge of a frozen chicken. But Fox was different. He was tall for his age and quiet and I knew he must be smart because he had been put up a couple of grades already. He was always first pick at any ball game, but there was something about him that set him apart from the other kids. I heard he got teased about his name and a couple of times I saw him he had bruises - once a black eye - but I never heard about him fighting. The boys said he was more likely just to walk away. I guess that's what made him different - Fox was one of those rare kids who felt little need for the company of others. He was friendly, but didn't crave friends: He could walk away. Even though he was younger, Scott and Marty were always knocking for Fox to join them for a game, but I could count on the fingers of one hand the times Fox had knocked on our door and - come to think of it - those times had been to pass on a message from Teena or ask to borrow milk and stuff like that - not a request to be included in anything friends-wise. 

There was something a bit special about him. Something about his soft hazel eyes that made you trust him, even when he was racing his chopper down Rattleneck Hill or playing wild games of JumpDigger on the lot where the new houses were going up. If you saw a gang of kids and Fox was among them, you breathed a sigh of relief. Someone trustworthy was with them. If someone got hurt, Fox would come through. Once he'd helped me carry a chair into the house when he saw me wrestling it out of the car. Another time Samantha fell out of the big oak in their back yard. I heard her crying from the kitchen and looked out to see Fox dropping to the ground beside her, bending over her with surprising tenderness. Before that I'd only ever heard him tease her, and I'd seen her chase him through the yard a couple of times in tears of fury or shrieks of laughter. When that happened it made me smile; I'd always wanted a girl but Scott and Marty both at the same time had nearly killed me and Lyle called a halt to the big family we'd planned. Sometimes I was grateful - the twins were more than enough trouble as it was. Samantha broke her collar bone that time. 

A year or so ago, the boys had come home from baseball bitching because Fox had brought Samantha along. I thought it was sweet and told them so, but Marty stared at me open-mouthed, like I was just about the stupidest person on the face of the earth. 'But mom! He let her play and everything! Girls can't play baseball!' I smiled at the memory. Good for you Fox, I thought.

Clarissa motioned to Carl and he lifted up his beer in response. 

'We'd better go too,' smiled Teena. 'It's a school night. I did tell Sam to be in bed by nine but she knows how to wind her brother round her little finger.'

She was halfway off the couch when the front door banged open, making us all jump, and Fox burst into the room, his wide eyes seeking his mother, his face deathly pale with two bright spots of color on his cheeks as if he had a fever. He was breathing hard, like he'd run over here, even though he had nothing on his feet.

'What is it Fox?' Teena couldn't keep the anxiety out of her voice. We all looked at the boy, but he said nothing, although I could see his throat working, and his eyebrows draw together in an expression of desperation that made him look much older. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. 

Teena moved quickly towards him and from the corner of my eye I saw Bill get up, although he stayed where he was. 

'What is it?' Teena repeated, more urgently now. He raised his eyes to hers as she got close to him and I could see the tears making them shine. Something dreadful had happened - I felt fear slither through my belly like a slimy ribbon.

'Mom?' his voice was a dry whisper. 

'Where's Samantha?' Teena's voice was sharp now, needing to know.

'Gone.'

I've seen people come into the hospital looking like that. There was a woman after a car wreck. She looked just the same. I found out later her whole family had died. Husband and two little children. She'd had to lie there beside their bodies while the fire crew cut her out, knowing that they were dead. That's how this kid's eyes looked.

'Gone where? What do you mean gone?'

'They took her. I couldn't stop them. They came and took her.'

'WHAT?!' Bill Mulder's voice made Fox flinch and he looked at his father for the first time as he advanced on him.

I felt faint. The room was suddenly too hot and crackled with tension. The air was a delicate bubble and I could feel the burst coming.

Teena also glanced nervously at her approaching husband and her next words spilled out of her hurriedly, as if trying to deflect him. 'What do you mean Fox?! Where's Samantha?!' She grasped his shoulders and shook him a little, trying to jolt the answer out of him. But I could see the boy was closing down, drifting off into a world of shock. Bill Mulder kept coming and Teena stepped between them and gripped his arm: 'Bill! We have to get home!' 

We all ran then - ran through the dewy grass to the Mulders' home, where the front door stood wide open and light spilled down the garden and Nixon was STILL on the TV, and the scattered remains of a board game bore witness to the fact that Samantha had wound Fox round her little finger and skipped right over her bedtime. 

Bill and Lyle ran upstairs while Teena and Carl and Clarissa checked downstairs and the basement. I stood beside Fox, who looked numb. I touched his shoulder to comfort him, but he never felt me. I noticed his hands were slack and that the color in his cheeks had gone, and his face was now so pale that his skin was almost translucent. His skin was cold to the touch, despite the sweaty heat of the night; his eyes were half closed and he swayed a little. I put my arms around his shoulders - less in comfort this time than to keep him from falling.

Carl came up from the basement looking grim, and called the police. Clarissa lowered Teena onto the couch. Bill and Lyle came thundering down the stairs, shaking their heads at our silent questions. Bill strode across the room to us and - before I could process what he was doing - yanked Fox from my arms and struck him hard across the face, spinning him around before he fell to the floor on his knees. I gave a cry of alarm and shock. Bill pulled Fox up by the back of his striped T-shirt like he would pick up a pup by its scruff, and shook him violently. 'WHERE IS SHE?!' he bellowed 'WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR SISTER?!'

I looked pleadingly at Lyle, who put a hand on Bill Mulder's arm. 'Hey Bill--' was all he got out before Bill shook him off and hit Fox again. Teena burst into tears in Clarissa's arms.

Now the poor kid was trying to cover up as his father threw him against the wall and held him there.

'Dad I--'

But Bill yelled into his face: 'YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO TAKE CARE OF HER! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO WATCH HER! WHERE DID SHE GO?! 

'Hey Bill!' Lyle was tight and angry now, and he never gets angry. 'Hey, let's look in the yard Bill.'

Bill Mulder backed away from his son slowly, Lyle tugging at his sleeve. Fox's eyes were wide between the loose fists he'd brought up to the sides of his face in a feeble defense. His lip was split and bleeding and his left eye was puffed and just starting to close. With a horrible sick feeling I recognized the injuries I'd seen on him before.

Bill spun suddenly and backhanded Fox clear off his feet. 'Hey Hey! Bill!' Lyle got between them now as Bill Mulder loomed over Fox and spat down at him: 'It's YOUR fault.'

If I hadn't been staring straight at the boy, I would have missed it, because it happened so fast. A look of such pain and guilt flashed in his eyes and then - almost instantly - it was replaced with complete blankness. His eyes went dark - actually changed color from hazel to a deep smoky green - and his face closed down like a mask. Lyle pulled Bill Mulder away then, but I knew for certain that even if he'd kicked the kid in the ribs, Fox would've looked up at his father with that same distant stare.

The police were suddenly at the door, and none of us had heard the siren. Bill Mulder talked to them as calmly as if he'd lost a cat, not a daughter. Lyle left him and came over to me. Carl gave his name to the police and hurried home to check on his own kids. Clarissa comforted Teena who was weeping loudly now on the couch. 

Across the room, Fox sat against the wall, hugging his knees to his chest. 

*

As far as I know, they never found Samantha. 

Fox wasn't home for a while after that. Clarissa said he'd been sent to military academy but he returned a few months later, so I guess she was wrong. The first time I saw him after that night I asked him where he'd been and he just shrugged and said 'away'. His face was smooth and blank and I felt immediately that probing any further would be a fruitless task. It tugged at my heart.

I encouraged Marty and Scott to call for him, but they returned - confused and angry and without Fox, shrugging that he was reading and didn't want to play ball any more. 

Kids being kids, it was only a short slippery slope from there to Fox being an outsider. Neighborhood basketball games were un-graced by his familiar lanky form, birthdays were celebrated without him; he was not embarrassed at school concerts or rewarded at prize-days. It took about a year I guess, before I asked the boys about him and they rolled their eyes and called him a freak, and his fall was complete. Three years later when he graduated top of his class, he didn't even show up to the ceremony. They called his name and the honor that was being accorded him, then - when it was plain he wasn't coming up to receive it - they set the scroll aside and carried on calling out other kids' names. I remember thinking his family must've left early for vacation, but when we pulled up in the drive I saw Fox sitting in the big oak, reading.

I'd hardly spoken to him since that night but I walked over and smiled up at him. 'Hi Fox.' He looked down at me and I faltered when I saw how guarded he was, even after all these years. 

'Hey Mrs Beidecker.' 

He pulled a leaf off the tree and closed his book on it - he always was a polite kid - but he didn't say anything else. I noticed the book was about psychology which surprised me; I'd been expecting the Hardy Boys.

'Congratulations on graduating.'

He nodded. 'Thanks.'

'Why didn't you go to graduation?'

His eyes flickered away, back to his book. 'Oh, I forgot.' He was a terrible liar.

'How are you Fox?'

'Fine Mrs Beidecker. How are you?'

He didn't look fine. He looked thin and pale and haunted. I searched his face for marks or bruises and he flushed, understanding what I was doing. I knew I was making him uncomfortable but I didn't want to just walk away. I guess adults always think they can help children - always think they'll have the solution. I guess most adults have no concept of just how serious those problems can be. I know I didn't. I didn't know that some problems have no solutions. But I needed to know that I had done everything I could to help him. 

'I'm worried about you,' I told him truthfully.

For just a second his surprise showed through his blank eyes, then he shrugged and smiled with his beautiful wide mouth, although the smile was over a long time before it reached his eyes.

'Uh, don't be. There's no need.' I sighed; he wasn't going to let me in. And then he surprised me by letting me in, just a little. 'I'm going away. To college. In England.' 

'Good for you Fox!' I suddenly remembered the last time I'd thought those words - when Fox Mulder had been just another kid on the block- a kid who'd taken his little sister to baseball practice, even though the other boys had thought he was a dork. I bit my lip and looked away from his face at his bare feet dangling against the rough bark. He'd grown so tall that his jeans were all too short. He had long, pale feet and I could see that he had soft dark hair on his legs. Since the night Samantha disappeared, Fox Mulder had quietly grown from the boy next door into a young man, and I'd barely noticed him do it. And now he was going away. Away from his mother, who never spoke to me any more - hardly seemed to recognize me at all. Away from his father, thank god. And away from the memories of the night his sister disappeared in front of his very eyes. He had found escape the only way he knew how - with his brains. He had given up childish things to ensure that he could leave home as soon as possible and get as far away from here as he could reasonably go.

My heart suddenly overflowed with sorrow for him, and fear for what would happen to him. I wanted him to be all right. He deserved to be all right, at the very least. I wished I could tell him how badly I wanted that for him, but I knew it would just embarrass him. I felt tears burning behind my eyes and couldn't even look him in the face.

Instead I reached up and touched his bony ankle. Held it gently like I was shaking his hand. 'Good for you Fox,' I repeated softly - and walked away.

*******************************

Fox went away and the Mulders moved from Chilmark later that year. They didn't stay in touch. But that Christmas I got a card from Oxford, England. It was a cheap card with a picture of a dog on it, playing in the snow. Inside he'd written 'To Mrs Beidecker from Fox Mulder.' Nothing personal, nothing informative; a brief confirmation that he was out there somewhere. When I threw out the Christmas cards that year, I kept that one. I felt stupid doing it - I didn't even keep the ones from Scott and Marty - but something told me 17-year-old Fox Mulder didn't have many people on his Christmas card list. He'd sent a card into the void and I had caught it. It was a small anchor attached to a gossamer thread that led back to him, and I couldn't bring myself to set him adrift. 

Every year after that brought another card and the refreshed memories of a life I'd barely glimpsed. A life belonging to a scared boy who'd grown into a man who - even through his own pain - realized I needed to know he was okay. 

The postmarks changed to Washington DC a few years later. I wondered what he was doing. The message on the card never altered, and he never sent a return address. When the postmark didn't change for a decade I wondered what Fox Mulder had found to keep him in DC for so long. A job? A woman? A prison cell?

I heard Bill Mulder died. Murdered, I think. I don't know the details, but I do know that I heard the news with a coldness unbecoming a human being.

**********************************************************************

Christmas this year brought another card. I smiled at his writing on the envelope - spiky and hurried. The card showed two children - a boy and a girl - unwrapping presents under a tree. I opened it and knew something had happened. There was more writing - not much more, just a couple of lines.

'To Mrs Beidecker from Fox Mulder.' And under that: 'PS. I found Samantha. She is dead.' 

I cried and cried until I couldn't cry any more. Lyle came in to see what was wrong and I couldn't even speak to him. I cried for Samantha and I cried for Fox because he'd loved her. But more than that, I cried because finally I knew how Fox Mulder had spent most of his adult life, and it broke my heart to think of him searching and searching for his sister, and the guilt and pain that must've driven him for all those years, and because I understood that all of it was because of three little words. 

For most people 'three little words' means something quite different - quite wonderful. Something to be treasured and prized. Something that protects and nurtures.

But for Fox Mulder, those three spiteful, hateful little words, shouted over his frightened, beaten, child's body by an enraged father, had driven him to devote his life to a quest which had now had the saddest of conclusions.

'It's YOUR fault.'

My heart broke all over again at the memory. 

The things we say to our children...

I showed Lyle the card and he cried a little too - and he never cries. Then he held me safe and warm and kissed the top of my head the way he used to when the boys were little. 

When the boys were little. When Fox was little. When they were all so filled with love and hope and the potential to be anything and everything. 

Scott is married now with three beautiful girls. He works as an art designer for an antiques magazine in Manhattan. His wife Hilary is a chef. Marty is an orthodontist in Bangor, Maine. He's not married but he and his girlfriend Gina have a two-year-old boy, Robbie. 

What is Fox Mulder? Who did he become? Is he married? Does he love? Does someone love him? Does he have children? 

Does he love them? 

I hope so. 

I hope so much for him because he had so little.

I hope that when he says those three little words they're the right three little words. 

And, more than anything, I hope he has someone who'll say them back to him.

END


End file.
